


Dark Places

by bananaoilgoil



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: 1920s, Angst, Drama, F/M, Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29960799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananaoilgoil/pseuds/bananaoilgoil
Summary: The year is 1921 and Prohibition is in effect. Catch up with Jack, David, and other familiar faces during the decade of America's "noble experiment" as they grapple with the changing times and the challenges in their respective lives.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Original Female Character(s), Sarah Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Comments: 4
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter of Dark Places was written as a stand alone one-shot some time ago. Recently I revisited it, and decided that I wanted to continue writing about these characters living in the 1920s (a decade that I really like learning about). The second chapter is just about finished and will be posted in a few days. I have a lot of ideas for other chapters and hope to update at least twice a month.
> 
> Whenever I write Newsies fic, I always change Jack's surname back to Sullivan, because that is his legal name. Eventually, at least I think, he would have used it, especially once he didn't have to hide from the law anymore.
> 
> Break Maiden is a horse racing term that is used when a horse or a rider wins for the first time.

**Prohibition only drives drunkenness behind doors  
and into dark places, and does not cure it or even diminish it.  
-Mark Twain**

  
**1921  
**  
It was a quarter past seven in the evening. Jack Sullivan had just gotten off of work. Dressed in a navy-blue suit, dark green silk tie, and black patent leather Oxfords, Jack's six-foot frame cut quite a dashing figure as he sauntered down Sixth Avenue. On that particular night, he was headed to his favorite drinking establishment, Break Maiden. Break Maiden was a speakeasy operated by one of Jack's oldest friends. Jack had sold newspapers for the New York World with Racetrack Higgens back when the two men were in their teens, which now, seemed like a lifetime ago to Jack. So much had happened in his life, and in the world, since the last time Jack had hawked headlines for Joseph Pulitzer. Usually, he went to Break Maiden to unwind while catching a laugh with friends before heading home, but today's visit wasn't a social call.  
  
When Jack reached West 53rd Street he turned right, walked past a bookstore and a shoe store, and then entered Ruth's Roses, a floral shop owned by Racetrack's common-law wife, Ruth. Ruth was a petite woman with a short blond bob who liked wearing the latest fashions; Jack had rarely seen Ruth wear the same outfit twice. Many men, Racetrack included, found Ruth's boyish figure and heavily makeuped face attractive, but she wasn't Jack's type.

Once inside the shop, Jack found Ruth behind the sales counter, assisting a portly middle-aged man with a thin but well-kept mustache. Ruth's customer was providing a delivery address for a dozen pink roses. The roses were to be sent to someone named Penelope who sold watches at Saks Fifth Avenue. Ruth briefly looked up and acknowledged Jack with a slight nod of her head, but didn't address him.

 _Probably for his mistress_ , Jack thought about the roses.  
  
Jack took a superficial interest in the various blooms and knick-knacks on display as he gradually made his way towards a heavy burgundy floor-to-ceiling curtain that hung in the back of the shop. On a small wooden table a few feet away from the curtain, sat a semi-translucent red vase. The vase had ferns and two swans etched in gold on it. The vase with gold swans was surrounded by several far less impressive vases and a selection of gilded picture frames. Jack picked up the red vase, pretending to examine it, all the while listening to what was happening in the shop. When he heard the tinkle of the bell on the front door that signaled that the mustached man had exited the store, Jack returned the vase back to the table and pulled aside the burgundy curtain.  
  
Jack turned the knob on the door that lay behind the curtain and opened the pine barrier which stood between the aromatic, legal world of Ruth's Roses and the smoky, illegal world of Break Maiden. Passing out of the floral shop and onto a set of stairs that was illuminated by only one dimly lit bulb, Jack headed down towards what should have been the floral shop's stock room. At the bottom of the stairs, Jack knocked on a wooden door that had been covered with electric blue paint. A small peep window a bit below Jack's eye-level opened and a pair of beady dark brown eyes starred out at him.  
  
"Password?" a nasal voice barked.

"How about _I'm gonna bust ya head_ ," Jack retorted.

"Dat ain't it Mista."

"Race, you know it's me, Jack. Come on, open up," Jack said with some annoyance in his voice. Racetracks' real name, bestowed by his long-deceased Italian mother, was Ernesto, but almost no one called him that. His surname, Higgens, came from his Irish father, also deceased.

"I don't know nothin...it could be a copper just pretendin' to be Jack. And, Jack _who_? What’s your last name? Every other fella who comes in here is named Jack.”

"Fine, _Silver Diamond_ ," Jack uttered the name of the first horse that Racetrack had ever won something on, back when Sheepshead Bay Race Track was still open. With the password finally spoken, the peep window closed and the electric blue door opened. Jack was ushered inside by a man who was a few heads shorter than him.

Once inside, Jack removed his gray fedora. "I hate when ya do that," Jack groused.

"Yea, I just like giving ya da business. What can I get ya?" Racetrack donned a matching black pinstriped suit and a scarlet bowtie with white polka-dots on it. His back hair was slicked back with generous amounts of pomade.

"Da usual," Jack replied.

"One whiskey for Cowboy," Racetrack said before slipping behind the bar to fix Jack's drink. Break Maiden had to keep outgoing expenses at a minimum in order to stay afloat. They couldn't afford to hire a full-time bartender. As Jack waited for his whiskey, he surveyed the room. Violet Allen was up on the stage, having just begun her first show of the night. Violet was a singer that Racetrack had hired for entertainment. She had a decent voice, but she didn't have the chops to make it on Broadway. What Violet didn't have in talent, she made up with her face and figure. Violet Allen was a knockout. Her stunning looks were what had first caught Racetrack's attention when he had auditioned her. Violet was performing for only three people that night, a young couple in their late 20's and Jack's brother-in-law, David Jacobs.

Jack saw David sitting at a table close to the stage. Both men worked for the New York Times, Jack in Distribution and David in Marketing. After working as a Newsie for a little over one year, David had returned to his studies and did well enough to earn a scholarship to the state university in Buffalo. Having a university degree allowed David to apply for positions which required the kind of education that was simply out of Jack’s reach.  
  
David watched Violet with singular attention as she sang "Ain't We Got Fun." She wore a sleeveless plum colored dress with silver beading on it. The hemline on the dress fell right above the knee. She had her stockings rolled down and she had applied rouge to her knees. Her auburn sausage curls shook lightly as she swayed along to the music.

"Here ya go Jack," Racetrack said. A whiskey served neat in a lowball glass had been placed on the bar.

"Thanks Race," Jack said while picking up the glass. When Racetrack turned away from Jack to put the bottle of whiskey away, the latter fished into his pocket for a fifty-cent piece and silently placed it on the bar. Jack's old friend always tried to comp him drinks despite his perfect willingness to pay. With drink in hand, Jack sat down next to David, but didn't say anything. The shade of David's two-piece suit nearly matched the hickory brown of his short wavy hair. He sported a garnet-colored necktie with thin blue stripes on it. The tie had been a gift from his late mother.

"Hey Jack," David said without taking his eyes off of Violet.

Jack leaned in to whisper in David's ear, "Sarah and I know."

"Know what?" David said innocently.  
  
"About her," Jack replied as his eyes and head motioned in Violet's direction.  
  
David stopped smiling and turned his gaze towards Jack. "How did you find out?"  
  
"Ya know, the word gets around Dave. You is here all the time." All of the color drained from David's face. He couldn't hide from Jack, not after all the years that they had known each other.  
  
"Let's talk over there," David said quietly. He cocked his head towards a small square table in the far corner of the room. Jack only shrugged his shoulders and followed his friend to the table that had been suggested.  
  
Once they were situated, David implored Jack. "Does Lily know?"  
  
"I don't know…but, if she don't, it ain't my place to tell her," Jack replied.  
  
"I don't know how it got this far," David said and then slumped the right side of his face into a cupped palm.  
  
Jack looked at David, not with disgust, but with pity. "I'm disappointed Dave. Lily's a good woman…”  
  
David stole a glance at Violet, who winked at him; he turned his head away from her in shame. "I know she is. I didn't mean for this to happen."  
  
Jack leaned across the table in confidence. For a moment he didn't say anything, but then he whispered, "You take her to bed?"  
  
David shook his head in the affirmative. "Be honest with me Jack, even though you're married to my sister. Haven't you ever wanted to stray?"

Jack's lower lip sucked in and he shook his head no. "I gots no reason to. I mean, these young gals movin' around town with their short skirts…their easy on the eye, yeah so of course I look, but I bet you a hundred rounds that none of them are on the level like your sister. Besides, how could I look my kids in the eye if I stepped out on their mother?" 

David knew very well that Jack would never cheat on Sarah, he was too swell of a guy. At that moment, David felt that he was half of the man that Jack was.  
  
Jack pressed further. "I just gots one question Dave. Why?"  
  
David didn't think too long about the reasons for his infidelity, because honestly, he couldn't say for sure why he had taken up with Violet. It was just something that had happened, like having a birthday whether you wanted one or not. "I don't know. When Lily and I got married, I saw us having kids and getting old…then Les died, along with a lot of other good guys…and the flu took Mama. I couldn't make sense of anything. Violet makes me feel young again…carefree…no responsibilities. We just go out and laugh.”  
  
Jack looked at his friend and drew a ring around the rim of his glass with his pinky finger. "Excuses Dave…just excuses."  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"You know what your problem is?" Jack offered.  
  
"No, but you're going to tell me, aren't you?" David said sarcastically.  
  
"You married someone you didn't love."  
  
David looked at Jack with a dumbfounded expression on his face. Then a flash of anger danced through his eyes. "What's it to you?" he said defensively. "It's my life. I can do what I want with it."  
  
Without any trace of emotion in his voice, Jack said, "We'se family, Dave…your life is my life." Jack knew full well that nothing would be gained by raising his voice. Jack took one long drag of whiskey, enjoying the sharp burn of the pale gold liquid as it slid down his throat. Then, he stood up, put on his fedora, and walked out of the speakeasy without saying another word.  
  
For a moment, David just stared at the empty chair that Jack had occupied. Then, he buried his face in his hands.

 ****_**Ain't we got fun**_  
_**Times are so bad and getting badder**_  
_**Still we have fun**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack returns home and tells Sarah what David revealed to him at Break Maiden. Shortly after Jack gets home, he and Sarah have a surprise visitor who comes bearing shocking news.

Jack’s wife, Sarah, was hunched over a sewing machine that had the word, Singer, emblazoned in large gold capital letters on its sturdy black arm. She was attaching a sleeve to a blouse which she was making for Winnie Walsh, a woman who lived in her building. Wearing a white and cornflower blue gingham dress, and a yellow apron, Sarah was the very picture of spring. There was not a hint of gray in Sarah’s brown tresses and from a distance, especially when her children were not with her, she was often mistaken for being in her mid to late 20’s, rather than the thirty-nine that she actually was. Because she had only had two children, the last being born in 1908, Sarah’s life and body hadn’t been weighed down with continual years of bearing babies, unlike other women of her generation. It wasn’t that she and Jack had tried to limit the size of their family, it was just that, for whatever reason, she hadn’t fallen pregnant since Lucy. 

Jack and Sarah’s flat was modestly furnished. An oblong wooden dining table took up a good portion of the living room that also served as the family’s kitchen. In a corner of the living room, there was a little work table for Sarah’s sewing machine. The Singer sewing machine that Sarah made her living by was something that she had purchased with some of what little money had remained after her father and mother had died. 

As the living room was also the kitchen, a stout black coal stove and a cast iron sink with a porcelain finish could be found in another corner of the space. In a hutch cabinet that almost was as tall at the ceiling, dishes just enough to serve the family lived with a few keepsakes. There were family photographs on the walls, all of Sarah’s side of the family, none of Jack’s. Once upon a time, Jack had had a photograph of his mother, but he had somehow lost it when sleeping on the streets in the hardscrabble days before he could afford to room at the Newsie’s Lodging House.

The Sullivans had only lived in the flat on Thirteenth Street since February of that year. Jack had moved the family there when it was decided that it would be better for their children, Lucy and Teddy, to finally have separate bedrooms. Sarah remembered how awkward it had been sharing a room with David and Les once she had reached the age when she was no longer considered a girl. It didn’t matter that the room that Teddy now slept in barely fit his bed and didn’t have a window or that one had to pass through Lucy’s room to get to it; at sixteen, Teddy was just glad to not have to sleep in the same room as his little sister anymore.

Jack and Sarah’s youngest, Lucy, stood at the kitchen table cutting carrots for the evening dinner. Lucy had dark blond hair that fell just below her chin. Her nose was almost a facsimile of Jacks’, leading everyone who met her to comment that she looked much more like her father than like her mother. Sarah had made the green dress that Lucy was wearing for the girl’s twelfth birthday, but at thirteen, her knees were already peeking out from under its skirts. Soon the dress, one of Lucy’s favorites, would have to be cast aside for something more age appropriate. 

Sarah and Lucy heard the door to the flat open and when the latter saw Jack standing in the doorway, her whole demeanor brightened, for she was nothing if but a Daddy’s girl.

“Hey kid, what’s for supper?” Jack asked, a broad smile on his face. He hung his hat on a hook behind the apartment door and then shed his suit jacket, placing it on the back of one of the kitchen chairs.  
  
“Carrot and potato pie… _again_.” Lucy replied. The emphasis that Lucy had put on _again_ suggested ennui, as if carrot and potato pie was something that the family had all too often for dinner.   
  
“Better than mud pie,” Jack quipped. He winked at Lucy and tussled the hair on the top of her head before walking up behind Sarah and laying a hand on each of her shoulders. Sarah briefly stopped her work and leaned her head slightly to the right, exposing a section of her neck for her husband to kiss. Jack was all too happy to oblige.

“Dinner won’t be for another hour yet, so if you’re hungry, there is some bread from last night’s dinner left,” Sarah said.

“How was your day, Papa?”

“Long,” Jack replied. “What did ya learn in school today?”

“We learned that a French lady scientist named Marie something-or-other got a gold medal last night at the National Institute of Sciences.”

“Marie _Curie_ ,” Sarah supplied the woman's last name for her daughter. “And actually, she was born in Poland. She just married a man from France.” No matter how busy she was, Sarah always made time to read the newspaper. It didn’t hurt that Jack got the newspaper delivered for half price because he worked at the Times.

“No kiddin?" Jack feigned interest. His thoughts were still consumed with the conversation that he had had with David at Break Maiden. Somehow, Jack felt that his brother-in-law hadn’t told him the whole story.

“Yeah, they had a fancy dinner and everything,” Lucy added. “I bet they didn’t serve carrot and potato pie to Mrs. Curie,” she added with some cheek.

“She don’t know what she’s missin’ then. I’d eat carrot and potato pie any day of da week,” Jack said before redirecting the conversation towards Sarah. “You still working on that thing for Old Man Walsh’s wife?”  
  
“Yes. I think I’ll be able to finish the second sleeve after dinner.”

For the last two years, Sarah had run a dressmaking business out of the Sullivan’s flat. Clients, mostly women, would bring her patterns and materials and in turn, Sarah would skillfully create the piece that the customer wanted. She also offered other services like hemming pants and skirts, resizing clothing, and repairing garments that had seen better days. It was exacting work, but as a self-employed tailoress, Sarah could take time off if one of her children became sick or if she wanted to go to Coney Island with the family on a given weekend. This arrangement was much better than working as a seamstress for someone who threatened to dock her pay if she was even half a minute late, which had been the case for most of her working life. Despite being her own boss, it wasn’t uncommon for Sarah to continue working late into the night to meet her deadlines. Jack often thought that his wife worked too hard, but he knew that without her income, the family wouldn’t be able to live as comfortably as they did.

Jack surveyed the room, noting that his wife and daughter were the only ones at home.

“Teddy ain’t home yet?”

“He’s at Sam’s for dinner,” Lucy said.

“Again?” Jack scoffed.  
  
“He likes it there. It does no harm,” Sarah said.

“Yea, but it’s like I never see the kid no more.”

Sarah turned away from her sewing for a moment to look at her daughter and said, “Lucy, did you finish your essay yet?”

Lucy stopped chopping the carrots. Without looking up at her mother, she said, “No ma’am.”

“Then you go do it right now. I’ll finish cutting the vegetables.”

“I’m almost finished though,” Lucy protested.

“Luce, what did your mother say?” Jack said sternly, not letting his daughter get away with doing as she pleased.

“Fine.” Lucy set down the knife and sulked away to her bedroom.

Once Lucy was far enough away from her parents, Sarah stopped her work completely. She cast a secretive glance at Jack and in a low voice said, “Did you speak to David?”

“Yeah, I did.” Jack knew that this subject was the reason that Sarah had asked Lucy to withdraw to do homework. Sarah didn’t want their daughter to know anything about David’s affair. 

“And?”  
  
“He didn’t deny nuthin”

“Did he say he would end it with Violet?”

“I didn’t make him promise anything, I just laid some guilt on.”

Sarah sighed and slumped in her chair. “It’s almost like I don’t know who David is anymore.”

“Listen, Sarah, Davey’s a big boy and you ain’t his mother. Whatever he’s going through, it’s his business.”  
  
“So, then we aren’t going to do anything?”

“We got our own family to worry about.”

“What do we have to worry about? We’re doing alright, aren’t we?”

Jack rubbed the back of his neck with the palm of his right hand; this was a nervous habit that he had had for as long as Sarah had known him. “Yeah, we’s doing okay, but lately Teddy’s talkin’ about going to college and I ain’t got the money to send him. I mean, he can’t work as a stock boy for Sam’s faddah forever. He’s a smart kid.”

“We’ll work something out. I could take on extra sewing work.”  
  
“Sarah, last night you was almost fallin’ asleep in front of dat thing,” Jack said, pointing to the sewing machine. “You can’t take on more work.”

Sarah sighed again and looked at the photograph of Les in his navy uniform that was hung on the wall opposite from where she sat. It was taken in the summer of 1917; he had been 27 years old then. Sarah wondered, as she often did, what Les would be doing with his life had he not perished on the _Jacob Jones_ when it was destroyed by the Germans. Jack noticed Sarah looking wistfully at the photograph of her little brother and decided it was better to not say anything more. Everyone, Jack included, missed Les terribly. Jack began to reach for the bread that Sarah had mentioned.

A knock at the door startled the couple. Neither of them expected company that night. 

“Who is it?” Jack called.

“David.” When referring to himself, David Jacobs never called himself _Dave_ or _Davey_ as family and close friends did. It was always _David._

Jack looked at Sarah with a quizzical expression and then opened the door. David stood in the hallway looking much as Jack had left him an hour earlier, however his cheeks were flushed and the expression on his face was one of worry, if not panic. 

“Dave, come in.” Jack invited his brother-in-law into the flat with a sweep of his arm. One look at David’s face told Sarah that something wasn’t right.

“David, what’s wrong?” Sarah asked.

“The Break Maiden was raided after you left.”  
  
Both Sarah and Jack knew what that meant. “Is Race in trouble?” Jack asked.  
  
“They arrested him, Jack. I saw them bring him out in handcuffs.”

“So, why are you standin’ in my kitchen if Break Maiden got raided,” Jack questioned. “You was there too.”

“I was upstairs in the flower shop on my way out when the bulls bust in,” David said. “They thought I was there to buy flowers.”  
  
A long low whistle emerged from Jack’s lips as he took in the full weight of David’s news. “They’ll probably send Race upstate,” he said almost to himself.   
  
“We always knew it was stupid to have a flower shop as a front for the bar,” David said matter-of-factly. “I told him that more than once.”

“Them boys up at Sing Sing get locked up for things far worse than selling bootleg liqua. Race betta watch his back,” Jack said with concern in his voice.

“It’s getting better since Lawes became warden,” David said weakly. “At least that’s what I’ve read in the paper.”

Jack rolled his eyes at David’s naiveté. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s just like the Waldorf up there now.”

“I didn’t say that,” David sputtered.

“Naw, Race is a little guy who’s gonna need a few big guys to look out for him.”  
  
As Sarah listened to the exchange between Jack and David, her thoughts turned to Ruth. “What about Ruth?” Is she alright?”  
  
“They were questioning her when I left,” David said.

“They might send her to Bedford for a week,” Jack speculated, referring to a women’s prison that was located about an hour from the city by motor car. 

“But if Ruth goes to Bedford, what will happen to little Harry?” Sarah exclaimed.  
  
Harold “Harry” Vecoli was Ruth’s son from a relationship that she had had prior to taking up with Racetrack. The boy was only seven years old. Apart from formally adopting the boy and giving him his last name, Racetrack treated Harry more or less like his son. 

“I thought Ruth’s mother took care of him most of the time,” David said.

“Her old lady’s health ain’t so good these days. I think a neighbor looks after Harry when Ruth is workin,” Jack said. 

“Maybe we could take care of him for a while, Jack?” Sarah offered

Jack knew that Sarah’s heart was in the right place, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to play pretend parents to little Harry Vecoli.

“Sarah, we ain’t got the room, and besides a little guy like Harry needs a lot of motherin’...you ain’t got time for that.”

The trio were silent for a moment. Sarah looked at her husband and then at her brother. She knew that Jack was right. Harry would be underfoot in the Sullivan home. Suddenly she had an idea.

“David, you and Lily could take Harry in. You have the room.”

“What?” David bellowed in surprise.

“I mean just until Ruth can take him again.”  
  
“We don’t even know if they will arrest Ruth,” David replied, taking a step closer to his sister. “Maybe we are getting ahead of oursel—”  
  
“They prolly will, Dave,” Jack said, cutting David off. "The Prohis have really been crackin’ down lately. I mean they prolly won’t give her more than a week ‘cause she’s a pretty lady with a little kid, but still…”

“David, you know that Lily would love having a child in the house,” Sarah said.

Sarah’s comment touched a sore point in David’s life, chiefly being that he and Lily had no children of their own, despite being married for six years. He wished that his sister wouldn’t have phrased it in such a way, but he knew that her words were true. Sarah wasn’t oblivious to how her statement might have sounded to David, but she didn’t want to make things worse by harping on the matter.

“Yeah, I know she would,” David admitted.

Sarah pushed just a bit further. “Then talk with her about it tonight.”

“Yeah, maybe,” David said non-committedly. 

“I’d betta get word ta Spot to lay low for a while,” Jack said, changing the subject.

Spot Colon, a former newsie and an old friend of Jack and Racetracks’, sometimes delivered liquor to Break Maiden and other speakeasies for rumrunners who worked out of the Red Hook docks in order to make a bit of extra cash.

“You don’t think Racetrack would rat on Spot, do you?” David asked.  
  
“Don’t be stupid Dave, Racetrack ain’t a snitch, but we don’t know who da bulls will talk to. Sometimes when they can’t nab da big guy, they decide ta go after da little guys. You know how it goes.”

During the whole time that David had been talking, Jack noticed that he hadn’t mentioned Violet. He wondered why. Had she been arrested too? Surely a fella would be concerned about a woman whom he was romantically involved with. Jack figured that maybe David didn’t want to mention Violet around Sarah for fear of censure. Still, Jack thought it was strange.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Chapter 3, we will make a quick stop in 1917 to meet a grown-up Les Jacobs!


End file.
